Douglas was born in Berkeley, California. His father worked in sales and his mother is an artist, writer, and spiritual advisor.[2] His maternal grandparents were vaudeville performers.[3] After the decline of Vaudeville his grandmother, Grace Hathaway, performed in burlesque and his grandfather, Joe Miller, became known in San Francisco for his talks at the Theosophy Lodge and weekly group walks through Golden Gate Park.[4][5][6]
His parents divorced when he was five and Douglas was primarily raised by his mother in the San Francisco Bay Area from the 1970s to early 1980s. At age seven, he decided to become an actor after watching an episode of Hollywood and the Stars. He performed in community theatre in San Jose and Walnut Creek, and after getting his GED his Ygnacio Valley High School drama teacher encouraged him to pursue his acting dream.
At sixteen, Douglas traveled alone to New York to audition for Royal Academy of Dramatic Art -- the only US held auditions that year -- but was not accepted. Though his back-up plan was to live in New York, his visit dissuaded him from that idea. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles in 1985.
Career
Live action
Theatre
Douglas and Richard Grove in The Beethovens, Los Angeles, 1993.
In 2015, while pitching a film project to The Asylum that would pay homage to Resident Evil 5, a video game Douglas had worked on and gained fan appreciation for, the producers were inspired to cast him as Pa Kettle in Z Nation, a Syfy zombie series, for a three-episode arc.
Though never considered for a lead contract role on the Los Angeles-based soap operas, Douglas guest starred on all of them numerous times.[11] Notable appearances include the manipulative Bellman in a 1991 Days of Our Liveshoneymoon arc and two different characters on The Young and The Restless - Chad Atherton in a 1996 arc and Kurz, a crime boss taunting Tristan Rogers's character, in 2014. In 2017, Douglas made his 26th appearance on The Bold and The Beautiful over 20 years, playing his 6th role on the show.
In 2021, Douglas announced he was rebooting his acting career with a focus on independent cinema.[12]
Film
Douglas' first film was 1989's Future Force with David Carradine. Though all his scenes were with Carradine, Douglas never met him as their characters only spoke through a futuristic video conference system.
In 2013, Douglas was cast as a serial killer in Apocalypse Kiss and altered his appearance to resemble Resident Evil villain Albert Wesker, as the producers were fans of his work in the video game franchise.[13]
Douglas has worked with The Asylum since 2002, appearing in ten of their films. In 2015, while working on Alpha House, he bonded with the film's writers, Jacob Cooney and Brandon Trenz. Together, they developed the idea for Isle of the Dead, which Douglas pitched to The Asylum producers David Michael Latt, David Rimawi, and Paul Bales.[14] The film was completed in 2016 with Douglas as Aiden Wexler opposite Joey Lawrence and Maryse Mizanin.[15] It aired on the SyFy network.
Douglas in Drowning In Secrets
Other notable The Asylum films include Titanic II as the ship captain, Sharknado 2[16] as Bud, one of the few characters to die by an alligator in a shark movie, and Aquarium of the Dead as the clueless aquarium tour guide.
In 2021, Douglas was cast in three unrelated Lifetime Network films: The Killer in My Backyard, Killer Stepmom, and Drowning In Secrets.
Producer, writer, director
In 1996, Douglas wrote, produced, and starred in his first festival film short, Falling Words. He later wrote, produced, and directed The Eighth Plane, an anti-Scientology short, and Freud and Darwin Sitting in a Tree, about Lewis Henry Morgan.
In 2001, he resurrected the character 'Lance Baxter' from Falling Words and created a cabaret act covering sad love songs that illustrated his dysfunctional relationships. It was performed at The Lava Lounge in Hollywood.[17]
In 2006, inspired by turning forty, Douglas expanded the idea into Lance Baxter: Halfway Through My Life If I'm Lucky.[18] The show featured original songs (lyrics by Douglas, music by Lily Popova) and comedic monologues. It was produced at The M Bar in Hollywood and ran for several nights as a fundraiser for More Than Shelter for Seniors.
Also in 2006, his film short Duck, Duck, Goose! played at film festivals worldwide and received Best Short awards from the Seattle's True Independent Film Festival (STIFF) and Trenton Film Festival.
His 2009 CGI short The Crooked Eye, starring Fay Masterson and narrated by Linda Hunt, played at festivals and won awards for Best Narration (STIFF), Best Screenplay (HDFest), and Best Animated Short (Red Rock Film Festival).
From 2007 to 2019, Douglas voiced Resident Evil villain Albert Wesker. As his fan following grew, he began producing fan service videos, with popular entries including anOld Spice spoof,[19]12 Days of Evil,[20] and Covid-19: Albert F. Wesker Tips.[21]
Douglas began his voice acting career in the early 1990s by providing walla for low budget action and erotic films that were usually aired late night on Showtime.[23] By the 21st century he had stopped doing general walla work altogether, but occasionally took on unique ADR jobs, including voice matching Guy Pearce in Factory Girl and Kevin Spacey in Fred Clause,[24] as well as voicing a TV reporter in 50/50[25] and Brad Pitt's SpaceCom computer therapist in Ad Astra.[26]
D.C. Douglas with security team at Horrorcon Kuwait, 2023
Commercials and promos
Douglas was a CBS Daytime promo announcer for the summer of 2003. He has cited that job as the turning point in his voiceover career, as he used the money from that contract to build his home studio, which was uncommon for voice artists at the time. Having a home studio allowed him to leave his editing job and work solely as an actor.[27]
Douglas has lent his voice to several national ad campaigns, including the GEICOCelebrity campaign from 2006 to 2008, the McDonald'sBe the Sizzle campaign from 2009 to 2010, Radio Shack's Holiday Hero campaign in 2010 and several Experian spots featuring Douglas and Tom Kenny as computers in 2014.[28]
He has been one of the promo voices for Sony Pix since 2018.[29]
D.C. Douglas recording final episode of Apple+ Cartoon, 2023
Douglas initially avoided anime work in the early 2000s due to the low pay rates at the time.[31] However, during his first convention appearance in 2010, he saw the growing interest from anime fans in meeting voice actors. Douglas has said the opportunity to travel while getting paid inspired him to seek out work at the Los Angeles production houses that recorded anime.[27] This led to fan favorite roles such as Yoshikage Kira in the Diamond Is Unbreakable arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Wooden Sword Ryu in Netflix's Shaman King, Edo in Netflix's Ultraman, Praetorian in Netflix's Super Crooks, and X Drake in One Piece.
Politics
In April 2010, Douglas faced criticism from the Tea Party movement for a phone call he made to Freedomworks in which he left an inflammatory voice mail. A day later, GEICO removed him from a series of internet commercials that were in post-production.[32] This led to some debate in the voice-over community about whether announcers were public figures.[33] Douglas responded by producing a satirical Tea Party PSA for YouTube that was subsequently broadcast on both Joy Behar's HLN show and Geraldo Rivera's Geraldo at Large with Douglas as a guest.[34][35]
In November 2011, Douglas tweeted a quote from Brett Ratner at a Tower Heist Q&A that included a disparaging remark about homosexuals. The Hollywood Reporter subsequently reported Douglas' tweet as the beginning of a controversy which led to Ratner resigning from his role as producer of the 2012 Academy Awards.[39] (In January 2021, Douglas was permanently banned from Twitter for mocking Q Anon accounts.)[40]
^Crump, William D. (2019). Happy Holidays—Animated! A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film. McFarland & Co. p. 58. ISBN9781476672939.
^"BTVA)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrst"DC Douglas (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved April 12, 2020. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.((cite web)): CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^"Pascal Voice - Tales of Graces (Video Game)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2021. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.((cite web)): CS1 maint: postscript (link)
